


One day I wish to crush, the next I wish to care

by Rennll



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Banter, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Headcanon, Pre-Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Pre-Kingdom Hearts I, Silly, Too Fluffy for Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-27 14:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19015084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rennll/pseuds/Rennll
Summary: One chapter Saïx is sparring with Xemnas, the next he is dealing with the consequences of that, as well as handling still being on good terms with Axel.





	1. Chapter 1

   -This is the most magnificent thing I have ever seen, Xigbar said as the ceiling collapsed. His words drowned in the clamor of marble-boulders and furniture that rained down into the arena below.  
   - I knew we had overlooked something when we applied the protective barrier, Zexion murmured.  
   Vexen meanwhile was covering his face in a gloved hand and groaning.  
   - You smartasses can repair that later, Xigbar laughed. Not like this castle contain anything invaluable.  
   This prompted a snort from Xaldin, who stood with his arms crossed in between him and the two deathglaring scholars.  
   - Do not make me correct you on the many levels that your statement is wrong, he grumbled. It’s fortunate that the mess down there is merely our living room, though I believe I have spotted the remains of my favorite couch.  
   - Shut up, the beast is raring to go, Xigbar cut in and leaned over the railing, perpetual grin growing.  
   - The spiraling dust, thrown into the air by the rain of debris, burst into, what looked like, blue flame. Axel, the only spectator looking more absorbed by the spectacle than Xigbar, would on principle correct anyone calling the substance fire. If it didn’t release heat, turned the ground into molten lava and stuck onto things, it wasn’t real fire. Though he would admit that if Saïx caught him in the middle of one of those bursts he would disintegrate, fire or not.  
   From a sizzling pile of rubble the aforementioned Saïx emerged, an azure glow coating his body, coursing out to the edges of his mane-like hair, and pulling in one hand a claymore as large as a person behind himself. On the opposite side of the arena another individual was dusting off his coat. Despite having been within range of the explosion nary a scratch marred his brown skin, and while the white locks blanketing his shoulders were tussled, it had less to do with the chaos in the arena and more with his general forgetfulness to apply a comb to it.  
   – This has gone on long enough, he rumbled with a low voice befitting a talking lion, while still focusing on the hems of his coat.  
    Two glowing eyes devoid of pupils, blank like a pair of pearl-sized fullmoons, etched themselves onto him. Saïx drew his lips back to expose canine-teeth too large to belong to a human, before hurling the claymore at the man as if it didn’t weight more than a stick Xemnas, as his name was, sighed before leaning sideways, letting the weapon whoosh past him and crash into the wall where it bounced against an invisible energy-barrier. The shield crackled with static, rippling like the surface of an ocean and released a screaming sound that Xaldin in particular had equated to a number of uncomfortable things: iron poles being bent, claws grating on glass, or a person having their spine pulled out of them. Subsequently he grimaced and covered pointy ears with his hands.  
   – The barrier is gonna break, Axel commented  
   – Ridiculous notion, Vexen replied, turning his chin upward and snorting. I designed it to withstand anything you hooligans trash out.  
   – Flamsylocks, Xigbar hissed, leaning closer to Axel, I’m betting a thousand munny on Frosty’s shield getting shredded before Xemnas brings your buddy down.  
   The affronted outcry Vexen made was obscured by the sound of Saïx smashing a replacement claymore, created from fumes of magic, down at the spot where Xemnas stood, shattering the weapon as well as the floor. The other man stepped aside in the last heartbeat, movements floating, as if performing a waltz, and held up his arms to guard against the dust and splinters going in all directions. With another claymore materializing in his grip, Saïx screamed and hunted Xemnas who always kept one second ahead, leaving singed cracks where his weapon created geysers of blue flame.  
   - Not the flooring as well, Zexion sighted.  
   - Nobody is crazy enough to wager on Vexen’s masterpieces, Axel answered Xigbar with a taunting smirk.  
   – Come on, are all of you cowards? Xigbar exclaimed and swept around with his arms outstretched, visibly doing his best not to wobble with the tremors shaking the stands. Is anyone willing to give Vexen’s excellent engineering-skills the benefit of a doubt?  
   He was met by a trio of unamused faces: Zexion blank, Vexen seething and Xaldin not looking like he was listening.  
   - Not even the inventor himself, he lamented, shaking his head, the eye not covered by an eye-patch gleaming with mirth.  
   Taking a deep breath to quell any outrage in his voice:  
   - An intelligent man does not make bets with one-eyed snakes, Vexen replied  
   - Ain’t that rude? Look at your own face before comparing anyone to a reptile.  
   - You crass, insufferable…  
   A claymore struck the barrier behind Xigbar’s head with the sound of a thunderclap, and all five spectators leaped a feet up into the air, Xigbar biting his tongue to keep himself from uttering a high-pitched scream.  
   In the arena Xemnas watched the barrier waver.  
   - That attack would have sliced Xigbar’s head off, he commented while ducking a swing that would have his meet that exact fate.  
   Whirling around he wrenched Saïx arm behind the other’s back and leaned forward.  
   - Find control, he said in his ear.  
   Saïx’s aura surged with the snarl of a bloodthirsty wolf, forcing Xemnas into retreating. A mind used to on-the-spot-mathematics calculated the approximate distance he would need to flee to avoid being incinerated. That Saïx’s power-output had hardly decreased since the start despite him spilling magic like a leaking tub was duly noted.  
   - If you can’t focus this impressive power it will become a detriment, he continued while dancing out of the way of strikes and jabs, every single one intent on causing brutal damage.  
   Saïx heard the words, though it was as if Xemnas spoke in a different language. His mind had compacted, outer layer bereft of thought, only a storm of reactions with his awareness sitting in the eye of it. A spot of calm, from where he looked out on all that was happening at a distance where he didn’t recognize the tanned figure whirling around.  
   The man had to be destroyed the storm roared. Him first, then everything else. He breathed molten air, every gulp expanding his lungs beyond the point of bursting. Too much wind inside of him, torching him aflame. With every trash of his claymore he felt oxygen boil in his muscles. Not enough, he needed to expel more. Throwing himself forward in a headbutt he intended to pulverize the man’s ribs.  
   Xemnas leaped into the air, to Saix’s ire judging by the way his screaming devolved from human shouts of frustration to beast-like roars. Magically staying afloat, Xemnas turned around to see Saïx, not jump in pursuit, but rushing away from him, as if he planned to ram the … Oh dear.  
With a leap that crumbled the floor beneath his heels, Saïx struck the barrier feet first. It bended like a trampoline, then sent him ricocheting like a burning bullet straight towards Xemnas. The protruding spikes of energy pierced him in the stomach, ripping through the layers of magic coating his skin like armor. With a grunt of pain Xemnas teleported, shifting out of existence and back, putting himself on solid ground where he doubled-over, clutching the wound. Saïx wouldn’t allow him respite. Howling, he once more braced against the side of the arena and lunged at Xemnas who whirled around to block his strike, two red energy-blades emerging from his hands. The impact tore hefty chunks out of the ground and pushed not-fire in all directions. At this point the barrier gave in, and, with a sound not unlike a sigh of relief, crumbled like a wall of sand.


	2. Chapter 2

A blur hung over his eyes when Saïx opened them. Where was he? Laying in bed, judging by the thin, white cover wrapping him. They might as well have granted him a spiderweb to sleep beneath with how the rooms chill permeated his body. This wasn’t his sleeping-chamber. His head throbbed as if someone had shoved hot pepper down the eardrums. Groaning like a not sufficiently drugged patient during a vivisection, he pressed his skull backwards into the pillow it rested on, wishing he could mash his brain into paste, and closed his eyes in a vain attempt to escape the arrow-sharp light streaming from fluorescent spots in the ceiling.  
   Welcome back, a too high-pitched voice called out.  
   – Axel, Saïx grumbled and peered towards the noise, spotting what could only be Axel’s hair, tuffs sticking out in all directions, looking like a burning bush; and the outline of his blackcloaked elbows resting upon the foot-end of the bed.  
   – Is this the medical bay? he asked, memories trickling back allowing him to recognize the room where the resident reluctant medic, Vexen, being the self-proclaimed leading expert on nobody-physiology, treated the ones too valuable a specimen to let lie and fade to nothingness.  
   – Yup, you’ve been out cold for a while. Been watching you.  
   Where you always that creepy?  
   A kneejerk-reaction of the tongue, something snarky he would have replied with had his name still been Isa. If he let those words slip Axel would smile, give him a witty reply, pretending to be offended, and neither of them would feel any less hollow.  
   Habit in kind was what made Axel stand guard, like back when both of them were ten years old, when he laid bed-ridden with a high fever and Lea refused to leave his house for school or anything else until it had had settled down. Habit and idleness.  
   – What happened? he asked, prompting a whistle out of Axel.  
   – Where to start?  
   Ignoring the ache in his back and arms Saïx pressed himself upward, fixing a glare that seared with the throbbing headache in his skull, too excruciating for him to pretend to be having a patience. In response Axel sped up his sentences.  
   – Remember the mission with Lexaeus, when you two got ambushed by a giant rhino-heartless?  
   Saïx knitted his brow. Lexaeus hadn’t been the person present in the last moments he foggily recalled. That incident which Axel spoke of happened a while ago. He remembered it … If only his drumming head would let him.  
   – You went berserk, teared down half of the castle that you were supposed to discreetly reconnaissance, and if your partner had been less tough you would have demolished him with it.  
   That right, Saïx recalled, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh.  
   – Xemnas decided to have a training session where you could learn to reign in your berserker-state, or else be exempted from undertaking mission-assignments and...  
   – ...I lost control again, Saïx finished.  
    – A spectacle to behold, Axel whispered exaggeratedly, putting his palms on the bed and leaning closer.  
    – Vexen’s barrier ripping apart, the floor crumbling and the ceiling caving in. You even landed a hit on the superior-man himself.  
    Calculating the collateral-cost in his head, Saïx moaned and sunk back onto the pillow.  
    – How did you stop me?  
    – After you destroyed the arena Xemnas begun fighting seriously, snatched one of your claymores and chucked it right ‘ere.  
    The spot on Saïx forehead that Axel pointed at begun pulsating more agitatedly as the owner of the bruised skull reimagined the blow. Axel winced in the fake sympathy of someone who was already dreaming about what a good story this would be to tell people later, an expression as nostalgic as the blue sky the both of them had grown up beneath. Saïx found himself expecting to spot mirth glinting in his green eye – not so ofcourse, they were coal-pits that swallowed up all light in the room.  
    – Think on the bright side, Axel chirped infernally high, causing Saïx to debate whether he should reach out and crush his windpipes. With how hard he smacked you I worried that you would wake up with amnesia and have forgotten all about me.  
    Not even severe head-trauma will save me from knowing you, Saïx thought.  
    At this moment an unseen person spoke, a voice too low to worsen his headache. The sound instead sent a shiver down his spine.  
    – You have woken.  
    Their heads snapped towards the doorway where Xemnas stood, wearing a serene smile. That expression of reserved contentment seldom left his face, as if it jealously guarded a possession; an expression that made people who glanced at it for the first time – would have, since Xemnas never humbled himself to appear in public, – startle and take a second look, as if the illusion of emotion that the smile was not quite managing to pull off stabbed into their minds like a nail. His black coat had been removed, leaving him bare-chested but for bandages wrapped over his abdomen. Speckled across his skin all the way up to his chin, bruises coursed in narrow lines, as if someone had taken a pencil with ink to an ark of glossy, chestnut-brown paper.  
    – Superior, I have hurt you, Saïx said while pushing himself to a sitting-position, fighting to not let the trembling in his muscles be seen, the heaviness of his breath be heard.  
    He did not know where to place his eyes: On the ground as if he awaited punishment for laying a hand on their leader, or meeting Xemnas’ gaze directly as an equal in fair-battle. Which was the correct response? None of them had injured him before. Rather than dallying somewhere between the two behaviours, Saïx decided to chance with the option he deemed safer and lowered his head as if humbling himself to a lord. In the limited arc of his vision he watched Axel consciously relaxing his body, the effort making him look as guilty as a five year-old digging through a very forbidden cookie-jar. On a logical level he could hope that Xemnas would be blind to the underlying messages in his comrade’s behaviour, which appeared obvious to him who had learned to recite the open book titled “ _Axel_ ” backward if need would be. Still he could not help but to wince inwardly when Axel’s posture practically screamed: Nothing interesting about us. As unsuspicious as grains of sand on a beach. Just your average loyal subjects definitively not scheming about overthrowing you.   
    His own reactions could be as revealing Saïx reminded himself: Hands wanting to curl into fists, teeth threatening to be clenched and eyes glancing towards Axel suspiciously often. With these potential slip-ups in mind, he focused on following Xemnas movements, the man holding out his arms in front of him to study the wounds in response to his comment, every muscle in his body budging after seemingly a lengthy debate over the pros and cons of expelling the energy. Saïx suspected that the superior measured the amounts oxygen he needed to inhale every day, not allowing himself one breath more than necessary.  
    – Most of these bruises come from the pebbles and embers expelling from your attacks. In the heat of the battle I never noticed them hitting me. Adrenaline truly has an extraordinary effect on the body, he mused.  
    Next his hand moved to hover above the bandages.  
    – This last wound you have granted me … was not so easily ignored, however it will heal.  
    – What if this continues? Saïx asked, looking up.  
    While intuition warned of making Xemnas consider this notion: a minion without control could only ever become a determent and would be regressed into a dusk, however logic argued that Xemnas had mulled over this possibility since the very first full-moon that had made him lose self-awareness and nearly succeeding in turning the first person he locked eyes with, Vexen, into a smashed popsicle, the man surviving thanks to Axel and the sacrifice of an uncountable number of lesser nobodies, getting away with a broken arm and a grudge that manifested in small annoyances: Like providing him medicine that was always out of date, or turning uncharacteristically clumsy whenever he needed to stick him with a needle. That Xemnas had never mentioned the threat of regression, gave Saïx the confidence to believe that the superior did not consider it a necessity for the moment.  
    – Not to worry, Xemnas replied, smile growing more plastic. Your powers will be reigned in eventually. Until then I have duties of a calmer nature that might fit you.  
    – What kind? Axel asked, and Xemnas turned to him with the shadow of a wrinkle on his brow, as if Axel was an asteroid that had bounced back into his orbit from where he’d repelled it.  
   Saïx clenched his fist.  
   – Do you consider yourself involved in Saïx’s fate? Xemnas asked, voice, face and stature neutral, as if he was a computer wishing to revise a fact on a registration-form.  
   Nothing about Xemnas was indifferent when he seemed the most blank. This time Axel did not keep his reaction veiled, grunting to show he was aware of overstepping.  
   – I’m nosy, he explained, waving a hand casually. Remember all the times you caught me trying to peek into the castle in Hollow Bastion?  
   Lowering his head, Xemnas stayed quiet for a moment, not revealing whether he tipped towards being lenient towards Axel, or assaulting him. Saïx exhaled slowly to soften the arch of his spine, which was shooting upward like that of a dog backed into a corner by a growling, larger one, knowing that such reactions might irk the superior all the more. Not a hard task, not as it would have been if he’d felt the panic that went with the instinctive reaction.  
   – Since this will become a public announcement anyway, Xemnas concluded after spending a minute on internal deliberation, and straightened, hands clasping behind his back.  
   – Recently the numbers of dusks under our command have increased exponentially, he begun with thoughtful weight to every word. Our missions to other worlds have increased. My time to focus on matters outside of daily workings of the organization has become limited, a situation that won’t be sustainable. It has come to my attention the need for a diligent individual to act as my assistant.  
   Axel opened his mouth, perhaps to question if not Zexion, who tagged after Xemnas’ every step, wasn’t already acting as one, but reconsidered.  
   – If you think that role suits me, I would be honored to fill it, Saïx said with a court nod of his head.  
   – Good to hear. As for working on controlling your abilities, we will continue the training-sessions after you have recuperated and acclimated to your new duties. What those shall be I will soon inform you off, Xemnas said while replicating the nod, then, turning his back with a decisive conversation-over-clack of his boots, he exited the room.  
   They stared at the empty doorway, Saïx relenting to his body’s aching pleads to stop holding itself upright, slumping down onto his elbows, and Axel striding over to the door to peek outside, as if to see if more unexpected visitors waited to interrupt their conversation, shut the door, whirled around towards Saïx and scoffed, expression big as if needing to enlarge himself after coveting in the suffocating presence that Xemnas wore around himself like a shawl.  
   – Guy gets pierced by a burning claymore and puts a bandage on it, while you end up bed-ridden, he said, scratching his head, walking over and deposited himself on the foot end of the bed, prompting a growl from Saïx who did not appreciate it when a person dropped their full weight a centimeter from his legs.  
   – Congrats, this is a leap forward for us, he continued, patting the covers above Saïx knee.  
   – What?  
   Recognizing the tone of voice that Axel used, he knew that which was coming next would either sound jarringly foolish, or brilliant, or both.  
   – You, assistant, Axel said pointing at him. Xemnas’ gonna hand his leadership-duties to you, which means that you are going to need inside information in order for affairs to run smoothly, and he has to make you privy to his longterm-goals.  
   – An assistant is not a right hand-man, Saïx replied, feeling as if he dosed the hopes of an over-eager child. Giving me the task to administer is a way to make me useful while I’m confined to the base. He won’t be confining in me about crucial decisions like he does Vexen or Zexion, I don’t have the skills that they do.  
   – Sure he will, Axel smirked at him with the surety of someone who could see the future unravel before him. Because … He pointed a finger into Saïx chest. … You are going to make yourself important. In the beginning he might lop crappy assignments and mountains of paperwork over you, but you’ll do such godly good work that Xemnas would be a fool not to promote you. Eventually he’ll have you run the whole organization for him, because nobody can do it better.  
   His tone grew quieter, a frown passing over his face like a wraith. His acting had improved, Saïx found.  
   – You gain his trust, and he’ll give you access to the secrets that he has swept under the rug, he continued, words like brittle glass between his teeth that he was afraid of cutting himself on.  
   – The people he whisked away, he finished for Axel, his own voice trailing away.  
   How curious, without emotion they should not hesitate to mention her - She, the reason they plotted this rebellion. A blockage remained, as if she was an abstract concept that would vanish with the mention of her name.  
   A painful throb caused him to grunt. Massaging his scalp he told himself that she wasn’t what he should be stressing his failing brain pondering about. Would Xemnas ever open up to even an irreplaceable asset? If not out of genuine sentiment, then because it would be benefitting?  
   It’ll end in my erasure if I fool myself into thinking he will be an easy man to deceive, he thought bitterly, but nodded.  
   – If I’m going to do his paperwork anyway.  
   – You’ll find what we need for sure, Axel said with the encouraging voice that had given a person named Isa an inflated enough ego to look at a heavily fortified castle and think: That looks like an exciting place to break into.  
   Exhaustion prickled at his eyes, though he had too much to consider to close them As always with Axel’s ideas this one needed him to refine it.  
   – It won’t win me any favors if we keep interacting the way we do, Xemnas sees it as holding on to sentiment, he pointed out.  
   – Got ya, Axel sighted, scratching the back of his head. How about I make a scene complaining about you handing me pain-in-the-ass assignments, make it believable that I stop hanging out with you.  
   If so, I could give you a real reason to hate me by sending you out on back-breaking missions to Atlantica.  
He had to fight himself to not say what he was thinking, a residue of juvenilism claiming that if he had to go through the likely-to-be years-long endeavor of gaining Xemnas’ favor, then Axel should make sacrifices himself. If he made that threat Axel would protest comically, although whether he slagged in a castle or soaked miserably in an ocean it wouldn’t make him feel neither better nor worse. Why make a quip that had lost it’s punchline?  
   – Before I go back to resting there’s one thing you need to think about, he said, hoping that Axel would catch the underlying message to leave him in peace afterward.  
   – What?  
   – Next time Xemnas unexpectedly enters a room, make yourself look less guilty.  
   A sceptical look painted Axel’s face.  
   – Sure you aren’t projecting your own apprehension onto me? he said.  
   – Tell me you were not wondering about whether he was suspecting us or not. The thought is enough for it to be written all over your face.  
   – If you’re telling me to avoid thinking about the plan when Xemnas’s near, I’m not going to be able to think of anything but the plan, Axel groaned, dragging gloved fingers down his face.  
   – Focus on something else, Saïx, who frowned at his theatrics, replied.  
   – Like what?  
   – Like a shopping-list.  
   Axel gave him a look as if he’d claimed that he saw tiny unicorns with butterfly wings hover over their heads. Understanding that the nap that his body sorely needed would have to wait, Saïx made the effort to prop himself upward and speak face to face.  
   – Whenever you want to look impervious, imagine yourself rummaging through a cupboard, taking note of the the things that you need to buy: six eggs, a bag of flour, milk. I assure you that you’re face will look blanker than a dusk.  
   A snort came from Axel, who clasped a hand over his mouth, eyes bulging.  
   – Are you telling me? Every meeting you are wearing that scowling stone-face throughout, or that time you brought Xigbar into submission by deadpanning his antics for ten-minutes straight, you were debating about what kind of fat-percentage of milk you wanted in your imaginary pantry?  
   – Not at every meeting.  
   Exclaiming a resounding "Ha” Axel plummeted down his stomach upon Saïx’s legs, a sunlight-smile crowning his lips.  
   – Should have had a heart there, I would’ve laughed until they hospitalized me next to you, he said  
   The word heart cut off any hisses Saïx had planned to spit out over being treated like a pillow.  
   – One day, we’ll make it so that all of us can laugh that much, he said and wished that the conviction that he burned into his voice would also exist in his chest.  
   – Now, may you move your bony, uncomfortable elbows from my tights?  
   The only thing Axel did was turn his grin towards him and shuffle into a more comfy position, now splayed across the lower end of his bed.  
   – This could be the last quality moment that we have with eachother, you want me here.  
   Who’s idea had it been to let the beds be this unnecessarily large? Slumber-parties were hardly beneficial to recovery. He opened his mouth to snap at Axel that bed-ridden or not, a certain obnoxious no-one would get their spine crushed if they didn’t leave this instant. The words never left his throat, partly due to it being more cursed snark trying to sneak it’s way out of him, and partly because warmth was radiating from Axel’s body, traveling through the bed-covers and up his legs as if he had stuck his feet in a basin of hot water. An incoherent mumble exhaled out of him as his entire body turned into a sloppy, muscleless heap of flesh.  
Slumping onto his back, he closed his eyes for a moment to drink in the sensation. When had he last felt warmth like this, unknitting the knots of his muscles and tendons? The element empowering him, the moon, had a very cold light. When he looked at Axel again, the man wore false amusement on his face. No doubt it made a bizarre sight to see him grow as limp as a dog scratched in the right spot. A person named Isa would have felt humiliated.  
   – You’re always like this, Axel commented and clarified when he tilted his head in response, expressing puzzlement.  
   – Your pops had a cabin with this huge, tiled stove in it, remember? At winter we would come inside all red nosed and wet from a whole day of playing in the snow, and he would let us sit with our back against the stove and a cup of hot chocolate to warm ourselves up. Everytime, I could count to three and you would doze off. I would drink your chocolate as well because you never had time to finish it.  
   – I do not remember, he answered truthfully.  
   Axel huffed in a half-assed effort to seem disappointed by this, and lowered his cheeks down on his hands. They laid quiet, Saïx feeling tiredness settling around him with new unrelenting agency.  
   – I think you worry too much about me giving away our plans, Axel spoke up, apparently satiating a need for small-talk that he did not share.  
   – Remember which one of us managed to fool Xaldin’s lost self, the very first time he caught us sneaking into the castle, that we had only mixed up the destination to a school field-trip. That was before I lost the nerves to make me sweat, he stated as an example, pointing a finger into the air.  
   He can’t help but argue to the end, like a child.  
   When he opened his mouth to reply however, the words did not come from the portion of his brain reserved for dry observations, but from the foggy, unthinking state state that the warmth lulled him into.  
   – The same week … , he listened to the grogginess seeping into his sentences, twisting to make his posture comfortable with Axel over him and, he wouldn’t lie, tried to nestle his legs further beneath him in order to receive more of his blessing warmth. - … That same boy crushed his mother’s favorite vase, and although we buried the pieces in the garden, he jumped a feet into the air every time she came into view and could not answer a question without stammering. Before the sun touched the horizon the cat was out of the bag. You can lie a fish up on dry land and convince a bully to chug a bottle of lamp-oil, but keeping secrets, for you paradoxically enough, is like trying to hold water in your palm: it spills.  
   A thundering “Aha!” from Axel made Saïx startle from the slumber he’d been on his comfortable way into. Axel had shoot up and pointed at him as if he was a suspect in a murder-mystery drama who had said something that gave him away as the culprit. That last comment had sounded too much like a joke Isa would say, hadn’t it?  
   – You remembered that perfectly, Axel exclaimed, revealing to him that it wasn’t the fact that he retained the tendency to jest which Axel had caught onto.  
   – Here you keep saying that it’s all shattered and faded, only to recite a whole day of our life flawlessly, he continued accusing in a playful tone.  
   – Barely a day, barely anything, Saïx interjected, wishing that Axel wouldn’t rile up when that only accentuated how much was usually stripped away.  
   Rolling his eyes, Axel settled over the covers, stretching out like a cat while expelling another wave of warmth that made the whole mattress feel like the softest of sunbaked cliffs.  
   – That’s just another thing we’re going to fix. We’ll fix our hearts, we’ll fix your head, and we’ll get our friend back.  
   Like a lot of Axel’s catchy lines, this one had been said on previous occasions. At one plane of his mind that had yet to be thawed by the warmth caressing him, Saïx observed that the order had changed compared to the first time he’d heard Axel make this promise, during the adjustment-period of becoming nobodies when they were learning to live without emotion, when he would startle awake at midnight, not knowing who and where he was, or why there was a hole in his chest.  
   We are going to get our friend back, our hearts back and your memories, it had sounded back then.  
   Pointing this out wasn’t the response he wanted to give Axel.  
   – It’s only you, he said instead.  
   – What?  
   Saïx settled his head back upon the pillow, staring into the ceiling. This seemed obvious now that he reflected upon it. How had he not realized before?  
   – My house, school, my parents: that’s vague, as if I’m peering into shadows. The only memories where things appear with clarity – you are always in them.  
   He looked up. Something strange was occurring to Axel’s face. It looked like he contained laughter, his eyes dropped into sadness, his expression become heartfelt, bitter, weirded out; eventually he sighted.  
   – Don’t know what face to make at that, he said.  
   – Just let me sleep, Lea.


End file.
